Before every major role-playing game, be it online or the ever diminishing single player, half of the pre-release hype is about what types of characters players want to be. After seeing this time and time again, I began thinking about this process of preselection derived from pure speculation. How do people, including myself, know what class they want to play while knowing hardly anything about a game? How many of us actually follow through with this choice? Where do we start first, class or race?
It seems like class selection is the most important, as it is the more particular of the two. For the most part, I would say that there are two key reasons (neither being more “correct” than the other) for picking your class; who you are and who you want to be. The latter is rooted within the very foundations of these games, role-playing. The appeal of any good RPG is finding oneself in a fantastical situation with a different pair of shoes on. Those who thrive off of these situations often generate characters that are, at times, quite different than themselves to exaggerate the fantasy world they are playing in. No, not all Shadow Knights are amoral beings who practice the dark arts, not all female characters are truly female - despite what some want you to think
- and not every Shaman in WoW is overpowered in real life. On the other side of things, there are players who consider their personality, play style and interests to choose a specific role. Patient players may tend towards the meditative casting classes while those who are possibly more action oriented will most likely choose a straightforward melee class. If one is more interested in helping others as opposed to harming anyone, they may be the most content playing a healer. By no means does this imply that the (class) decision making process is black and white, but I’d like to think that one of these two factors forms the groundwork of our selections more than the other.
The choice of race tends to fall into those to categories as well.
I find myself more of an advocate of the second example when it comes to picking my class. I primarily think of how I want to interact with a group before deciding on what specific profession accomplishes this goal. My main has almost always been a “light fighter,” usually a rogue. I enjoy playing these types of characters very much but have always felt that I was missing something. What attracts me to this class is the fact that I find myself to be somewhat of an opportunist in life; I tend to wait for the right moments to strike, metaphorically speaking, efficiently. To this end, I switched from raiding as a rogue to raiding as a priest early into my WoW career due to vacancies in my guild. I felt a little out of place with the role but I found it to be an enjoyable experience. Having now played both ends of the spectrum, both the healer and the mana sponge, I must say that I am rather bored with playing any character with a straightforward role. This notion, combined with the preexistent feeling of incompleteness with my class selection, has led me to the conclusion that I fit best within the “jack-of-all-trade” type classes. The variety of options, usefulness and level of difficulty (when played properly) associated with these masters of multitasking keep me on my toes at all times. I thoroughly enjoyed the druid that I played in WoW and have recently begun revisiting the bard in EQ. My choice of race is of little consequence though I tend to avoid playing humans - I already play one IRL - and gravitate towards those of short stature. This is most likely because of the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” was my introduction to fantasy literature... a book full of short people!
Needless to say, I am going to be playing a Halfling (or hopefully Gnome) Bard come Vanguard's release.
With all of this in mind, I’d like to hear from the rest of you as to how you make your decisions. Can you trace any particular set of events that helped you reach your conclusion?